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TEMPLE RAID: ARMY'S ORDER WAS RESTRAINT

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The Indian Army that captured the Sikhs' Golden Temple here last week was under orders to damage the shrine as little as possible, the officers who led the assault said today.

Lieut. Gen. Ranjit Singh Dyal, a Sikh who was in overall charge of the temple assault, told the first foreign reporters who were allowed into the temple complex that he consequently decided to use only infantrymen, armed only with small arms.

Maj. Gen. K. S. Brar, the immediate commander of the temple operations, told the reporters, who were given a conducted tour of the temple grounds, ''It was a very difficult, sensitive task.''

During the tour today there was no one in the temple complex but the reporters and the military, and the visitors were not given an opportunity to talk to people in the streets of Amritsar to compare their version of events with the army's.

General Brar said his first job was to take off the tops of the two 80-foot observation towers and to destroy a bunker atop a water tower. Armed extremists in those three positions would have prevented troops from even approaching the temple, he said. The three positions were destroyed with rockets.

When troops approached the main entrance, they faced a string of 29 firing positions behind brick walls with holes that had been built in recent weeks atop a parapet under the temple's clock tower. The clock today was stopped.

Three battalions of infantry and a detachment of commandos made the assault while a fourth battalion cordoned off the area. The troops, according to the generals, included Indians from many religious and ethnic groups, including Sikhs.

As troops entered the temple, they were shot at from hidden positions on the sides of the steps. The first battalion to try to fan out along the marble esplanade suffered such heavy casualties that it could not make any headway. Extremists Well Armed

It was the earliest indication that the extremists were well organized, skillfully deployed and armed with many modern weapons, General Brar said.

The Sikh militants ''fought extremely well,'' General Brar said. ''They fought you from rooftops, from hotel tops, from manholes, from windows, from doors, from walls, from everywhere.''

Troops separated the marble-fringed quadrangle of buildings enclosing the Pool of the Nectar of Immortality and the temple proper from another part of the complex that includes offices, guest houses, a meeting hall, a park where families can relax, a dining hall and a kitchen.

Sikhs who followed the moderate leader, Harchand Singh Longowal, dominated this latter half of the complex. They surrendered after many appeals. Loudspeaker appeals also persuaded several hundred others to leave the complex.

That done, the main objective became the Akal Takht, the key to the resistance. The plan was to have commandos attack it with incapacitating gas and stun bombs. Behind the commandos came sappers with fire extinguishers to put out any fires that might start in the Akal Takht. Windows Bricked Up

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But, the generals said, the windows of the Akal Takht had been bricked up, leaving only holes from which to fire. So the gas grenades bounced off. The sappers, unarmed, were cut down.

Two more battalions of more than 600 men each were committed to the assault, but they stalled after approaching the Akal Takht closely. At one point, the army brought in an armored personnel carrier, hoping that the sight of armor would have a psychological effect on the extremists.

Instead, the armed Sikhs surprised the troops again by knocking out the personnel carrier with antitank rockets.

Later the army brought in a tank, not to fire on the Sikhs with its cannon but to train its searchlight on them so as to blind them. This didn't work, either, General Brar said. Prisoner Blown Up

At one point, he said, the armed Sikh militants captured a soldier, tied explosives to him and detonated them.

The army mounted a howitzer on the roof of a neighboring building and fired at the roof of the Akal Takht, trying to frighten its defenders into quitting. They moved down to another floor and kept firing.

''This battle went on for two more hours,'' General Brar said. ''It was close quarters. Our chaps went in, the fighting was hand to hand. The extremists were fighting to the last man, last round.'' It was at this stage, he said, that Mr. Bhindranwale was killed, along with his top two lieutenants.

Asked about reports that Mr. Bhindranwale had been killed by other extremists, the general replied: ''I'm quite convinced he died fighting to the end, inside here.'' Army Gains Control

Finally, the army gained control. Sikhs fled from the Akal Takht in every direction at the end, the generals said.

At an earlier stage, all those who had been firing on troops from the Harimandir Sahib surrendered.

Inside the temple, most of the blood has been cleaned up. The marble esplanade gleams again. There is still much rubble around, and the Akal Takht has the unmistakable smell of death. But inside the Akal Takht, the Sikh holy book once again rests in repose each night.

And soon - the army does not known exactly when - pilgrims are to be allowed back into the temple that, in General Brar's words, has now been ''purified,'' at great sacrifice of life.

A version of this article appears in print on June 15, 1984, on Page A00005 of the National edition with the headline: TEMPLE RAID: ARMY'S ORDER WAS RESTRAINT. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe